I mostly remember Burnout 2 as a chaotic racer whose big selling point was a big crashing mode that felt especially exciting and plainly fun to play. The racing was supposed to be its focus though, and that’s what we get in the better regarded open world big brother that we get to play today.

Our Thoughts

Burnout Paradise is a large, attractive open world racing game. Unlike others, you never leave your car (although I believe there are one or two places where you can hop between them) and instead focus on driving through a large city. Early on there’s a lot of exploration – first of all to find all the different challenges you can take on (more or less one per crossing), but just as valuably to find shortcuts, occasional additional cars, collectibles and, most important, repair shops.

That last one becomes very important, as they’re not marked on the map by default, but a number of activities seem to require them. Breaking your car is never good, but since a bunch of them involve others actively trying to ram you, you want to get a repair in but don’t initially know where to go. A bit more help would have been extra – I ended up seeking them out early to get rid of that handicap.

It still marred my enjoyment of the challenges and, at least for this playthrough, I focused on finding those where I wouldn’t be held back too much by this. That was fine anyway – there was a lot to explore, and driving up to the observatory was a fun enough challenge. Playing more would likely see me make even more use of that.

Final Thoughts

The difficulty curve is a bit counteracted by having to learn your away around – not to learn the different (main) streets, but because the location of repair shops matters a lot and you can’t easily find those. It’s a negative I felt all the way through, but it was a lot of fun regardless.